Six Noted Economists Support One Nation Banking Policy

Governing Australia is pretty easy - just wait for One Nation to come up with a good idea, condemn it, laugh at it, douse it with scorn, then when everyone has forgotten who thought of it first trot it out as your own policy.

Some of the instances where One Nation initiatives have been copied are: the abolition of ATSIC (Howard Government 2004), initiating offshore detention for illegal immigrants (Howard Government 2004), reforming the Family Law Act (Howard Government 2004), renaming the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs to be the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (Howard Government January 2007), introducing a citizenship test (Howard Government September 2007), cutting the skilled migration program (Rudd Government March 2009) and giving preference in Government purchasing to locally made products (Rees Government June 2009).

The most recent example is the call by six noted economists, in an open letter to the Federal Treasurer, for the re-establishment of a state-owned bank modelled on what the Commonwealth used to be to stimulate competition and give consumers better options.

Re-establishment of a national publicly-owned bank has always been One Nation policy and is written into the original One Nation Principles and Objectives.

Since deregulation Australia's banks have become glorified loan sharks who actually want people to be poor money managers and late payers on their credit cards so they can charge them exorbitant interest.

Any small business that treated its customers the way the banks treat theirs would go broke in a month for lack of clients.

One Nation says: now that the global financial crash has exposed the folly of market deregulation the vital and strategic business of banking should be put back under the control of the peoples' representatives with a State-owned bank as Commonwealth once was.